Free Till Death Do Us Purl by Anne Canadeo

People could always use something good to eat at a time like this, couldn’t they?
    Down in the kitchen Lucy checked the refrigerator and cupboards to see what she had on hand. Not too much. There was a chicken. Very promising. Never underestimate poultry, that was her cooking motto. One of them, anyway.
    She grabbed an apron and got busy.
    A few hours later, Lucy and Maggie arrived at the Bailey home, a wooden frame saltbox. The style was indigenous to New England and perennially popular. The neat, conservative-looking home, dark blue with white trim, was just the sort of place Lucy imagined Nora living. Though Rebecca had grown up here, she and Jeremy had their own apartment in the village, Maggie had mentioned. But Rebecca was staying with her mother now, at least until the funeral. Lucy had driven, picking Maggie up on her way.
    “No other cars here yet,” Maggie noted as Lucy parked her Jeep.
    Lucy had noticed that, too. It was good in a way and bad. Good because she didn’t know what to say to people she’d never met before, under these circumstances. . . after figuring out how they both knew the family and deceased. Bad because it would be hard to sit alone with Nora and Rebecca. Hard to know what to say to them about the tragedy, beyond the obvious.
    Lucy took a breath as she retrieved the casserole dish from the backseat. These situations were never easy. This one in particular was uncommonly sorrowful.
    Maggie had also whipped up something for the Baileys—a large date nut loaf that she’d wrapped in a basket.
    “That smells good. What did you make?” Maggie asked, glancing at Lucy’s dish.
    “It turned out to be roast chicken with mushrooms, artichokes, and a few sun-dried tomatoes. Pretty much what I was able to scavenge in my kitchen.”
    “It sounds very tasty. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”
    Lucy smiled but didn’t answer. These acts of condolence cooking made the cooks feel a bit better. But she wasn’t so sure that those on the receiving end noticed one way or the other what they were eating at such intense times of grief. If they were even able to eat.
    Maggie rang the doorbell and Nora’s brother, Gary, answered. He seemed to recognize them. “Hello, ladies. Come right in. Nice of you to stop by.”
    “We won’t stay long. We just wanted to see how Nora and Rebecca are holding up, and drop off some food.”
    “Rebecca is upstairs, resting. Nora’s in the living room. Her next-door neighbors just left. Go right in,” he told them.
    Gary took their offerings to the kitchen while Lucy and Maggie made their way to the living room.
    Nora sat in an armchair but stood up when thetwo women entered. “Maggie, Lucy . . . thank you for coming.”
    “No need to thank us,” Maggie insisted. “I’m so very sorry.” She gave Nora a hug and Lucy did the same.
    “I don’t know what to say. It’s just so unbelievable.”
    Nora nodded sadly. “We still can’t believe it. It’s like a nightmare. You want to wake up and have everything be just the way it was. But you can’t.”
    “Have they figured out how it happened?” Maggie sat down in an armchair and Lucy sat next to her.
    “Not yet. It sounds to me like the fire department is in charge of sorting it out. They’ve called in special arson investigators. Jeremy worked with a lot of flammable chemicals. Even if he wasn’t mixing them, there were many in his work space. A fire may have started and reached some explosive substance before he could put it out.”
    “What about sprinklers . . . that sort of thing?” Lucy asked. “Don’t labs have all sorts of safety devices?”
    Lucy remembered the lab in her high school and how their science teachers always demonstrated the special emergency shower to be used if anyone’s clothing caught fire or if anyone suffered a chemical burn. There was always some kid who acted out every year by pulling the cord and flooding the room.
    “Oh, there were plenty. But the sprinklers couldn’t